Paper Clippings The Blog of The Crossroads Cultural Center

Paper Clippings, more than a classical blog, is a service providing valuable reading material in order to help readers reach a judgment about current affairs. Comments and discussion are more than welcome.

Amir Taheri notices that foreign policy experts in the US are affected by domestic political allegiances to a very significant degree. This probably reflects the fact that the key foreign policy jobs are assigned by political appointment, rather than just seniority in the diplomatic corps. Of course, this can have harmful effects.

It is a sign of how reason has been reduced in our culture that we take seriously psycologists when they "discover" the most obvious things about human nature. Hey, they are SCIENTISTS! They are "studying meaning" from a SCIENTIFIC standpoint! They PROVED that humans want "to feel we're significant beings in a meaningful world." The Chicago Tribune never suspected that before.

The scientist('s)...religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire.